The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c12.30

c12.30

It may, however, be urged that if the beginning of the year was twice altered owing to the precession of the equinoxes, how is it that we do not find the traces of the intermediate stages or of the changes in the seasons in the old Vedic works? How, it may be further asked, did the Indian Aryas not discover the precession of the equinoxes in the early Vedic times? But it is not at all difficult to answer these questions. We might as well ask how no one before Bhâskarâchârya or Newton ever thought of the attraction of the earth, though since the very beginning of the human race every one observed heavy objects falling down to the surface of the earth. The reason is plain enough. Celestial and natural phenomena cannot be fathomed or understood without a steady and close observation for centuries, and, above all, until all the auxiliary, or rather the whole group of sciences are proportionally developed. If we bear this circumstance in mind, we can, I am sure, discover sufficient traces of the intermediate changes in the Vedic works. Thus we find that of all the ancient nations the Hindus alone had well nigh accurately determined the rate of the motion of the precession of the equinoxes. Hipparchus considered it to be not less than 36", while the actual motion at present is 50".25 per year. Ptolemy adopted, as observed by Prof. Whitney, the minimum of 36" determined by Hipparchus; and it is evident that the Hindu astronomers who fixed the rate at 54" per year could not have borrowed it from the Greeks. Prof. Whitney is at a loss to understand how the Hindus succeeded in arriving at a determination of the rate of motion, so much more accurate than was made by the great Greek astronomer, and he observes that it might be a "lucky hit on their part."* But why should they try to hit, even luckily, when they could have easily borrowed it from the Greeks? I am therefore disposed to think that it was independently, and almost correctly, discovered by the Hindus long before other nations could do so, though we cannot exactly fix the period when it was done; and that there were sufficient materials for the purpose in the old literature of India.